History Repeats Itself
by lianpe
Summary: It's ten & five years after the events on Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna and Alan Grant is trying to move on with his life. But, somehow, life - uh - finds a way of messing with him. Reports emerge of hybrid dinosaur carcasses appearing, and Alan somehow finds himself drawn into the mystery.


All things Jurassic Park related belong to the late, great (still amazing) Michael Crichton. My imagination just runs away with me sometimes.

 **The Day Before**

Brr-ing. Brr-ing. Brr-ing.

"Yes, hello? Dr. Sattler speaking."

"Ellie! How are you?"

"Alan? Alan is that you? It's been ages."

"Five years."

Ellie sighed, wedging her phone between her shoulder and the right side of her face. She was halfway through making lunch and there was an excitable toddler giving the electricity socket an overly interested glance. She could not even begin to guess why Alan was calling her; the disintegration in their relationship could only have been called acrimonious.

"Ellie? You still there?"

"I'm still here. Just as I was 'still here' after that fiasco on Isla Nublar, when you decided to - what was it? Oh, yes - find yourself." All the pent-up emotion suddenly came surging out of her, as if his sudden reappearance in her life had been the undersea earthquake to trigger a tsunami of feeling. "Why the hell did you need to wander off to some God forsaken hellhole in the Badlands to find yourself? What were you hoping to find?"

She heard him sigh. "Well...I don't know. The passion for my field. My inner child. You-"

"You had me, Alan Grant, and you bloody well knew that!"

Her son raised his head; his gaze inquiring. Silently, she berated herself for cussing in front of her child.

"Ellie-"

"Don't you dare 'Ellie' me, Alan. Don't you dare patronise me."

He sighed again. "I wasn't intending to, believe me. It's just...I thought you might want to talk...what with your divorce and all..." He let the suggestion hang there.

Ellie made a violent motion with her free hand, as if to dispel the very suggestion Alan was fumbling to convey. "Well, you've had a wasted phone call, then."

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. "I suppose so."

"Goodbye, Alan."

"Wait - Ellie-"

She set the phone back in its cradle, and let out a gusty sigh.

 _Why did he call? Why? Why dredge up mounds and mounds of bad feeling? All I want is to forget. To forget what could have been if we'd all made the right choices._

-

Billy Brennan mopped his sweaty brow with a dust-darkened handkerchief. It was a little after eleven thirty, and the ground was already blisteringly sand-baked.

God alone knows what it'll be like at two, when the sun's at its peak.

"Dr. Brennan?"

Kelly Curtis, a gangly, somewhat gamine girl in her late teens, was one of the students that Professor Grant had brought with him on the dig. She had proved a major asset, though; alone out of her batch she was able to properly identify the dinosaur the team had uncovered by the way its ilium, ischium and pubis connected.

"Definitely a member of the saurischia." she'd said. "And a relatively medium-sized carnivore by the looks of it. A troodon perhaps?"

Professor Grant had given her the briefest of nods; indicative of approval and the acknowledgement of a budding 'great mind'.

"I only hope," he'd said to Billy later, "that she doesn't turn out like that young upstart Levine. Believe me, we don't need another like him - brilliant though he is."

"Dr. Brennan?" Kelly was frowning through dust-caked eyelashes. "I don't - do you think you could come over here for a minute, please?"

Billy leapt up obligingly. "Are you having trouble extracting a segment of the fossil, Kelly?"

She shook her head. She looked more surprised than confused. "It's...I don't understand."

 _Is it just me...or does she look scared?_

Billy hunched over the fossil. He stared. "Wait. Is this somebody's idea of a joke?"

-

Alan's despondent drive back to his dig site left him plenty of time to reconnect with himself - something he couldn't do with masses of graduate students running about the site as if it were a shop on Black Friday.

Damn Ellie. But the thought was as lifeless as the dust the tyres of his jeep spit up as he drove. He didn't love her anymore - that was now obvious. And her feelings towards him were hardly warm. So why can't I forget her? Am I clinging onto a memory, or am I just too scared to let go?

The prospect of spending the rest of his days as a bachelor loomed dark and grey in the horizon of his future. _Is that what I'm afraid of?_

"I've faced raptors, and I'm afraid I'm going to die alone." He shook his head slowly, in silent chastisement.

Ping-ding-a-ling. Ping-ding-a-ling. Ping-

"Hello?"

"Alan?"

"What's wrong, Billy?" His brow furrowed. Why would Billy be calling? Had something happened to one of the students?

"I - uh - I actually don't know, Alan. But you need to get here straight away."

Alan's heart seemed to launch itself into his throat. He'd left their site a couple of hours ago, to drive into town for provisions. Billy almost never called unless it was an emergency.

"I'm on my way. Actually, I'm probably...uh, half an hour to forty-five minutes away. I'll be there soon."

"It might not be soon enough. Some guys from the ministry of defense are here."

Alan was so shocked he slammed on the brakes. The phone in his hand went flying, landing on the back seat.

By the time he'd retrieved it, Billy was in a state of agitation. "Alan? Alan Grant, are you there? Sweet Jesus, say you haven't had an accident."

"I haven't." He shifted the gear into neutral, not bothering to get to the side of the road because, in such a desolate area, the likelihood of another car wanting to pass his was very small indeed. "Now tell me what's going on."

"I wish I could - there's a grim military beefhead hovering over my neck waiting to break it if I say too much."

"Well, what _can_ you say? Is this about InGen?"

There was a brief intake of breath on the other end of the line. "Yes."

"Ah, shit!" Alan's hands clutched the steering wheel of his jeep, as if to steady himself, though he was sitting down. "I guess they've discovered Isla Nublar and want me to say something?"

"Not exactly." Billy's tone was reticent. "This is a new problem. Kelly dug it up..." he trailed off, and his voice sounded muffled, "Alright, alright - I'm not telling him anything! I'm not! Keep your hair on!" There was a shuffling noise and he said, his voice sounding less distant, "I've got to go, Alan. Just get here as fast as you can."

"Right. I will."

The line went dead. Alan shifted the vehicle into gear and pushed the accelerator down with his foot. The jeep lurched forward, tyres crunching on the dirt.

It was a tense drive. The sun streamed in through the windows, hot and unrelenting. Perspiration trickled down his neck, his back, his chest, but he didn't dare lift his hands from the wheel - not for a minute.

As the miles fell away and minutes ticked on, his mind went to work. What would the government want with him? Why, if the government was investigating InGen, would they want to speak to him, when there was a much more public figure around - Ian Malcolm? And, most importantly, what had the dig team found at the site that had unnerved the team so?

Billy had mentioned a 'new problem' - and also the fact that Kelly had 'dug it up'. What was _it_? Why was _it_ important?

Many theories whizzed around in his mind. A new dinosaur? No - that would be cause for celebration, not agitation. A dead body? Maybe - but wouldn't that be a problem for the police? Besides, if it _were_ a dead body the ministry of defence wouldn't show up. A single dead body wouldn't be an issue of national security.

"What is it, then?" he muttered aloud, heart thumping like a bass drum. "What would be so important as to draw the ministry of defence to a dig site in the heart of the Badlands?"

His phone beeped. He glanced at the screen out of the corner of his eye. It was a text. From Malcolm.

One hand still on the wheel, he opened the message.

 **do not go back 2 dig site** , Malcolm had typed. **ministry interfering isla nublar sorna - get yourself away - answer no qs - ellie called**

All in all, it was a garbled, unsettling message. Alan set his phone back down on the passenger seat, twice as unsettled as before.

 _Ellie called? Why would Ellie call Malcolm? I just spoke to her an hour or so ago. If she had anything to say, wouldn't she say it?_

Icy fingers crawled down Alan's back. But it was too late to turn back now - the camp lay before him, a dark blob in the distance, though near enough for them to have spotted his white jeep if they had binoculars. And they would have.

Getting closer, he noticed the large helicopters squatting around their site like huge, metallic mosquitoes.

Billy came running out of one of the trailers as soon as he saw Alan's jeep drive into the camp.

"You're here." There was a wild look in his eyes, and his hair was in disarray. "You're here."

"That will do, Dr. Brennan." A tall, gaunt, silver-haired man stepped out of the trailer. Even in the dusty mess of the Badlands, he looked immaculate.

Alan's throat tightened. "What is this about?"

The man ignored him. "Please return to your trailer, Dr. Brennan. Grant and I must speak alone."

Billy nodded and walked away, though he did not look at all happy at being dismissed.

"Right." The man rubbed his hands together. "It's so nice to finally meet you, Dr. Grant." Neither his voice nor his eyes supported the sentiment. "You may call me General X."

"General X?" Alan repeated. "What is this - a James Bond movie?"

General X's expression soured. "Please don't joke, Doctor. This is not the time for misplaced humour."

 _Misplaced humour?_ "Well," Alan replied, politely, "if you'd be so good as to tell me what's going on, then I'd be-"

"This way." General X turned on his heel, leading the way to the dig site.

"Wait, wait - the government's interested in fossils now?"

"Oh, yes." the General said, drily. "Especially when the fossils have such interesting stories to tell. Ah." He stopped, casting an eye into the pit the team had been extracting fossil fragments from. "I wonder what we have here?"

"A Troodon." Alan replied. "A relatively small dinosaur from the Cretaceous period."

General X laughed softly, shaking his head. "I think not, Doctor."

Alan felt his hackles rise. "I'm sorry, but I do think I'm a better judge of-"

"Oh, I don't doubt your qualifications and expertise, Grant. Neither do I doubt the fact that you might, indeed, have found a - a True Don."

"Then what are you trying to say?"

"Look in the pit, Doctor."

Alan glowered at the man for a few moments before lowering his gaze to the pit. The discoloured bones of the Troodon he well remembered from morning, but-

His jaw dropped. "What are _those_?"

"My question exactly, Doctor."

These bones were far newer than that of the Troodon's. They were a dirty yellow, and some minute bits of dark flesh still clung to a few of the exposed bones.

"Gave your team quite a shock." the General said. "Uncovering them."

Alan wiped perspiration off his brow. "I don't understand. How did these bones get here?"

"If we could answer that, we'd be saving the U.S. government a great deal of money. We've been finding these bones - and sometimes carcasses - in all sorts of odd places. Buried in school playgrounds. At construction sites. All sorts of places."

Alan scarcely heard him. He had crouched onto his haunches and was examining the bones. He felt an icy finger trail down his spine again. "General - these - these are dinosaur bones."

"Your team confirmed them as such."

 _From where? Nublar? Sorna? But why dump the bones?_

"Doctor."

 _And why is the ministry of defence getting involved?_

"Dr. Grant."

 _Is this some kind of revenge on InGen? If so, by whom?_

"Dr. Grant, when I speak to you I expect your attention."

Alan glanced up at the man and scowled. "I'd like to examine the bones."

"I'm afraid that isn't possible. However, other bones have been examined by paleontologists in my employ and they have reported that these bones are a match to no known dinosaur."

"What?"

"That means," the General said, in a slow voice as if to a child, "that someone is breeding a new species of dinosaur and, for some reason, very publicly disposing the bodies of the specimens that do not make it to adulthood."

Alan got to his feet, crossing his arms over his chest. "That's impossible. Dinosaurs have been extinct for sixty-five million years. You can't just recreate them."

The General suddenly looked cold. "Don't lie to me, Dr. Grant. I have been keeping a watch on InGen long before the park was open."

"Well...these aren't InGen dinosaurs."

"How can you deduce that?"

"I know all the species of dinosaurs that InGen created. Malcolm and Levine found their manufacturing plant on Isla Sorna."

"As did we." The General inclined his head. "But I am afraid that neither I nor my contacts know of no other entity willing and able to recreate dinosaurs."

 _That's ridiculous_. Out loud he said, "There must be hundreds of companies willing to manufacture dinosaurs. They're in demand, what with dino-crazed kids running about."

"Willing, but not _able_." The General's pale eyes did not leave his face once. "Ability counts, too, Doctor."

"Right. Well, why don't you ask John Hammond about it, then?"

"He died a few months ago." The General continued to study his face. It was like being attached to a lie-detector. "And your fellow park survivors have been less than willing to cooperate with me."

 _Well, that explains Ian's message._

"I hope you will forgive me, Dr. Grant."

"For stomping into my dig site?"

The General smiled. "Oh, no. For taking you into our custody."

Alan's eyes flew open. "What?" he meant to say, but before he could he felt a prick at his neck. His legs wobbled. Dark lines swirled in his vision. Then - plomf - he sunk into the dirt.

\--

Well, that was fun to write. I have no idea if anyone reads JP fanfiction anymore, but...oh well. That was fun to write.


End file.
